Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 45 part 2/6

But he was so impatient of frequent postponements that, in order to compel me to answer more carefully and copiously, he even challenged me with verse — and with good verse, for which you love him the more. But it could not be read to you then, so utterly removed as you were from the study of these matters, nor can it now. For his departure was so sudden and so disturbed by that tumult that none of these things could come into our minds; for he had arranged to leave it for me to answer, and many considerations concur why this discourse should be sent to him. The first is that it is owed him; then, that it is fitting his good will toward us should be shown even in this way — namely, what sort of life we now lead; lastly, that in joy over your hope he yields to no one.

For even when he was present, out of his intimacy with your father — or rather with all of us — he was much concerned lest certain sparks of your talent, which he diligently observed, should not so much be fanned into flame by my care as be extinguished by your own carelessness; and when he shall have learned that you are devoted to poetry as well, he will so rejoice that I already seem to see him exulting before me.' 'You will do nothing more pleasing to me indeed,' he said; 'but whether you will laugh at my fickleness and boyish levity, or whether it comes to pass in us by some truly divine nod and order, I would not hesitate to tell you: I have become suddenly more sluggish toward those meters; something else, far, far different, has now shone out upon me with some light or other.

Philosophy is fairer, I confess, than Thisbe, than Pyramus, than that Venus and Cupid and all such loves of every kind.' And with a sigh he was giving thanks to Christ. I received these things — what shall I say I gladly received, or what shall I not say? Let each take it as he will, I care nothing, save that perhaps I rejoiced immoderately. Meanwhile, after a little while, the day disclosed itself. They rose, and I, shedding many tears, prayed much, when I heard Licentius singing softly and gaily that prophetic verse: 'O God of hosts, turn us, and show us Thy face, and we shall be saved.' And this, the day before, when after supper he had gone outside for the needs of nature, he had sung a little too loudly for our mother to bear, in that such things should be repeated in continuous song in that place.

For he sang nothing else, since he had lately imbibed the very tune of the melody and loved, as happens, the unaccustomed strain. That most religious woman, as you know, rebuked him for this very thing, that the place was unbecoming for a song. Then he had said jestingly: 'As if indeed, if some enemy were to shut me in here, God would not be going to hear my voice.' So in the morning, when he had returned alone — for both had gone forth for the same cause — he came to my little bed: 'Tell me truly,' he said, 'so may that which you wish come to pass for us, what you think of me.' And I, taking the young man's right hand: 'What I think,' I said, 'you feel, you believe, you understand. For I do not suppose that yesterday you sang so long in vain, that the God of hosts, being turned toward you, might show Himself to you.'

But he, recalling it with admiration: 'You say,' he said, 'a great thing and a true one. For it moves me not a little that just now I was so unwillingly called away from those trifles of my song, and now I am both loath and ashamed to return to them; so wholly am I borne up into certain great and wondrous things. Is not this truly to be turned toward God? At the same time I rejoice also in this, that a scruple of superstition was cast into me in vain — that I was singing such things in such a place.' 'To me,' I said, 'this too is not displeasing, and I think it pertains to that order, that we should say something even from this. For I see that both the very place at which she was offended, and the night, agree with that song.

For from what things do you think we pray that we may be turned toward God and see His face, if not from a certain mire of the body and its filth, and likewise from the darkness in which error has enwrapped us? Or what else is it to be turned, if not to raise oneself up out of the immoderation of vices by virtue and temperance? And what else is the face of God than that very Truth, for which we sigh, and to which, being loved by it, we render ourselves clean and beautiful?' 'It cannot be said better,' he said, exclaiming; then, more softly, as if into my ear: 'See, I pray, how many things have occurred, so that I may believe that something is now being done toward us in a more prosperous order.' 'If you care for order,' I said, 'you must return to those verses.

For the training of the liberal disciplines, sober indeed and concise, makes the lovers of the truth that is to be embraced both more eager and more persevering and more refined, so that they may more ardently desire it, more constantly pursue it, and at last more sweetly cling to it — that which is called, Licentius, the blessed life. At the naming of which, all men raise themselves up and, as it were, reach out their hands, to see whether you have something you can give to the needy and to those hindered by various diseases.

To whom, when wisdom has begun to prescribe that they endure the physician and suffer themselves to be cured with some patience, they fall back into their rags, warmed by which and putrefying, they more gladly scratch the itch of their wretched pleasures than, by enduring and undergoing the physician's admonitions — a little harsh and burdensome to their diseases — be restored to the health of the whole and to the light. And so, content as with a dole under that name and notion of the most high God, they live wretched — yet they live. But other men, or, to speak more truly, other souls, while they drive this body about, that best and most beautiful Spouse seeks out as already worthy of His bridal chamber — souls to whom not to live, but to live blessedly, is enough. Go therefore meanwhile to those Muses. But yet do you know what I would have you do?

'Command,' he said, 'what pleases you.' 'When,' I said, 'Pyramus and that woman of his shall have slain themselves one upon the other, as you are about to sing, in that very grief, with which your song ought to be the more vehemently kindled, you have a most convenient opportunity. Seize upon the execration of that foul lust and of the poisoned fires by which those pitiable things befall them; then rise up wholly into the praise of pure and sincere love, by which souls, learned in the disciplines and beautiful with virtue, are joined to the understanding through philosophy, and not only flee death but also enjoy to the full the most blessed life.' At this he, silent and for a long time nodding in consideration, departed with his head shaking. Then I too arose, and having rendered our daily vows to God,

we set about going into the baths — for that place, when we could by no means be out in the fields under a gloomy sky, was suited to us and familiar for disputing — when, behold, before the doors we noticed dunghill-cocks entering upon an all-too-fierce battle. It pleased us to observe. For what do the eyes of lovers not compass, over what do they not range, lest by some means or other from any source the beauty of reason should give a hint — reason that with all knowing and not-knowing measures and governs, and draws its followers who gape after it wherever, and bids itself be sought in every place? For whence or where can it not give a sign?

As in those very cocks it was possible to see the heads thrust forward, the ruffled feathers, the vehement blows, the most cautious evasions, and in every movement of animals devoid of reason nothing that was not comely — since another Reason from above moderates all things; and finally the very law of the victor: the proud crowing and the limbs gathered as if into one orb, as though into the haughtiness of dominion; but the sign of the vanquished: the little feathers raised from his neck, and in voice and movement everything unshapely — and by that very fact somehow, according to the laws of nature, harmonious and beautiful.

We asked many questions: why all cocks are so; why for the sake of dominion over the females subject to them; why then the very sight of the fight led us somewhat, even apart from that loftier consideration, into the pleasure of the spectacle; what there was in us that sought after many things removed from the senses; what again there was that was captivated by the very invitation of the senses. We said to ourselves: where is there not law? Where is not command owed to the better? Where is not a shadow of constancy? Where is not an imitation of that most true beauty? Where is not measure?

And thence admonished that there should be a measure of watching, we proceeded to where we had purposed; and there, as best we could, indeed diligently — for the things were fresh, and when could such notable matters escape the memory of three zealous students? — we gathered all the little works of our lucubration into this part of the little book, and nothing else was done by me that day, to spare my health, except that before supper I was accustomed daily to hear with them half a volume of Virgil, we everywhere considering nothing other than the measure of things, which no one can fail to approve, but to perceive it, when anyone does anything zealously, is most difficult and most rare. Then on the next day, quite early, brisk, we assembled at our accustomed place and sat down in it.

And I, with both attentive upon me: 'Be here,' I said, 'Licentius, as fully as you can, and you too, Trygetius; for it is no small matter that is at stake: we are inquiring about order. Why should I now, as if set in that school from which I rejoice to have escaped by whatever means, praise order to you copiously and in orderly fashion? Receive, if you will — nay rather, make it that you will — that than which nothing can be said more briefly about the praise of this thing, nor, as it seems to me, more truly. Order is that which, if we shall have held it in life, will lead to God, and which, unless we shall have held it in life, we shall not come to God. But that we shall come, unless my mind deceives me about us, we presume and hope. Most diligently, therefore, ought this question to be handled among us and resolved.

I could wish the others were present, who are wont to take part with us in these pursuits; I could wish, if it might be, to have with me not only these, but at least all our intimate friends, whose genius I always admire, now as intent as you are — or at any rate Zenobius alone, whom, laboring over this so great a matter, I never received at leisure in proportion to its greatness. But because that does not come to pass, they will read our writings, since we have now resolved not to lose words about these matters, and to bind the things themselves, fleeting from memory, with the fetter, as it were, of writings, by which they may be brought back. And thus perhaps order itself demanded it, order which brought about their absence.

For you too, assuredly, into so great a matter — because it is laid upon us alone to be carried through — rise up with a more erect mind; and when those shall have read who are our greatest care, if anything shall move them to contradiction, this disputation will beget for us other disputations, and the very succession of discourses will insert itself into the order of the discipline. But now, as I had promised, I will oppose Licentius, as far as the matter allows — Licentius who has now almost completed the whole cause, if only he can steadfastly and firmly wall it round with the rampart of defense.' Here, when I perceived that by their silence, by their countenance, by their eyes, by the suspense and immobility of their limbs they were sufficiently moved by the greatness of the matter and inflamed with the desire of hearing:

'Therefore, Licentius,' I said, 'if it seems good to you, collect within yourself whatever of strength you can, sharpen whatever of keenness you have, and embrace by a definition what this order is.' Then he, when he heard himself compelled to define, shuddered as if sprinkled with cold water, and gazing at me with a more troubled countenance and, as happens, smiling at his very trepidation: 'What matter is this?' he said. 'Why do I seem to you, as it were, to nod assent? I know not with what adventitious spirit you believe me inflated.' And straightway rousing himself: 'Or perhaps,' he said, 'something is with me?' And he was silent a little, that whatever notion of order he had might be gathered into a definition; then, more erect: 'Order,' he said, 'is that through which are done all the things which God has established.' 'What?

Does God Himself,' I said, 'not seem to you to be moved by order?' 'Absolutely,' he said, 'He seems so.' 'Then is God moved?' said Trygetius. And he: 'For what then?' he said; 'do you deny that Christ is God, who both came to us in order and says that He was sent by God the Father? If therefore God sent Christ to us in order, and we do not deny that Christ is God, then God not only does all things but is even moved in order.' Here Trygetius, hesitating: 'I know not,' he said, 'how I am to accept this. For when we name God, it is not Christ Himself who as it were meets our minds, but the Father. But He meets us then, when we name the Son of God.' 'You do a fine thing,' said Licentius. 'Shall we then deny that the Son of God is God?'

Here the other, though it seemed perilous to answer, yet forced himself and said: 'This one also indeed is God, but nevertheless we properly call the Father God.' To whom I: 'Restrain yourself rather,' I said; 'for the Son is not improperly called God.' But he, moved by religious scruple, when he did not even wish his words to be written down, Licentius urged that they should remain — after the manner of boys, to be sure, or rather of men — O the shame! — of almost all — as if indeed for the sake of boasting that matter were being carried on among us. When I rebuked his agitation of mind with graver words, he blushed. At which perturbation of his I noticed Trygetius laughing and rejoicing, and to both of them: 'Is it thus you carry on?' I said;

'does it not move you, by what masses of vices and by what darkness of ignorance we are pressed down and covered over? Is this that attention of yours a little while ago, over which I foolishly rejoiced, and that rising up toward God and the truth? O if you could see, even with eyes so bleared as mine, in what perils we lie, of what disease this laughter of yours betrays the madness! O if you could see! How quickly, how instantly, and with what greater length you would turn it into weeping! Wretches, do you not know where we are? That the souls of all the foolish and unlearned are indeed submerged is common to them; but wisdom does not extend aid and hand to those submerged in one and the same manner. There are some, believe me, there are some, who are called upward; others who are let loose into the depths.

Do not, I beseech you, redouble my miseries. Let my own wounds suffice me, wounds which, that they may be healed, I daily beg God with almost daily tears, yet often convict my very self that I am too unworthy to be healed as quickly as I wish. Do not, I beseech you — if you owe me anything of love, anything of bond, if you understand how much I love you, how much I esteem you, how much care for your characters torments me, if I am worthy that you not neglect me, if finally, with God as witness, I lie not that I desire nothing more for myself than for you — repay me the benefit; and if you gladly call me master, render me my wage: be good!'

Here, when tears set a limit upon my speaking that I should say no more, Licentius, bearing it most grievously that everything was being written down: 'What indeed,' he said, 'have we done, I ask you?' 'Do you still,' I said, 'not even confess your fault? Do you not know that in that school I was wont to be gravely vexed, because boys were led on, not by the usefulness and beauty of the disciplines, but by love of the emptiest praise, so that some were not even ashamed to recite the words of others and received applause — O evil to be groaned over! — from those very men whose were the things they were reciting?

So you, although you have never, as I think, done any such thing, nevertheless are attempting to introduce and sow, both into philosophy and into that life which I rejoice to have at last taken up, the last but more harmful plague of all — that of pestilential rivalry and of empty boasting; and perhaps, because I deter you from that vanity and disease, you will be the more sluggish toward the studies of learning, and, repelled from the ardor of windy fame, you will freeze into the torpor of inertia. Wretched me, if it shall be necessary to endure even now such men, from whom vices cannot depart without the succession of other vices!' 'You shall prove,' said Licentius, 'how much purer we shall be in the future.'

'Only this we beseech, by all that you love, that you be willing that it remain unknown to us, and that you command all those things to be deleted, and at the same time that you spare even the tablets, which we no longer have. For nothing has been transferred into the books of those many things which have been discussed by us.' 'By all means,' said Trygetius, 'let our penalty remain, that that very fame which entices us may, by its own scourge, deter us from love of it. For that these writings may become known only to our friends and intimates, we shall sweat not a little.' He assented. And meanwhile our mother entered and inquired of us what progress we had made; for the question was known to her too. When I had ordered both her entrance and her question to be written down after our manner: 'What are you doing?' she said;

in those books which you read, did I ever hear that even women were brought into disputations of this kind?' To whom I: 'I do not much care,' I said, 'for the judgments of the proud and the ignorant, who rush upon books to be read just as upon men to be greeted. For they do not consider what the men themselves are, but with what sort of garments they are clad, and with how great a pomp of estate and fortune they glitter. For such men, in writings, do not much attend either whence a question arises, or whither those reasoning strive to arrive, or what has been unfolded and completed by them.

Yet since among them are found not a few whose minds are not to be despised — for they are sprinkled with certain seasonings of humane culture, and are easily led through golden and painted doors to the sacrosanct inner shrines of philosophy — both our forebears have done enough for them, whose books I see are known to you from our reading, and in these times — to pass over the rest — a man most excellent in genius and in eloquence and in the very insignia and offices of fortune, and, what is before all things, in mind, Theodorus, whom you yourself know well, is bringing it about that neither now nor among posterity shall any kind of men justly complain about the letters of our times. But my books, if the hands of any shall perhaps have touched them, and having read my name they shall not have said:

'Who is this fellow?' and cast the book aside; but if instead, whether from curiosity or from excessive zeal, they scorn the meanness of the threshold and press on to enter, they will not take it ill that I philosophize together with you, nor will they perhaps despise any of those whose discourse is mingled with my writings. For these men are not only free-born — which is enough for any liberal discipline, let alone for philosophy — but were born in the highest rank among their own people. Moreover, the writings of the most learned men include even cobblers who took to philosophy, and men of far humbler conditions of fortune, who nevertheless shone with so great a light of genius and virtue that on no terms would they be willing, even if they could, to exchange their own goods for any nobility whatsoever of this kind.

Nor will there be lacking, believe me, such a kind of men to whom this very thing is more pleasing — that you philosophize with me — than if they had found here anything else, whether of charm or of gravity. For among the ancients there were also women who philosophized, and your philosophy pleases me exceedingly. For, mother, that you may not be ignorant of anything: this Greek word by which philosophy is named is in Latin called the love of wisdom. Whence even the divine Scriptures, which you so vehemently embrace, enjoin us to shun and deride, not philosophers absolutely, but the philosophers of this world. And that there is another world, most remote from these bodily eyes, which the understanding of a few sound minds beholds, Christ himself sufficiently signifies, who does not say, 'My kingdom is not of the world,' but:

'My kingdom is not of this world.' For whoever thinks that all philosophy is to be fled from wills nothing else of us than that we should not love wisdom. I would therefore despise you in these writings of mine if you did not love wisdom; but I would not despise you if you loved it moderately, and much less if you loved wisdom as much as I do. But as it is, since I know that you love it much more than you love your very self — for I have come to know how much you love me — and since you have advanced so far in it that now you are terrified by the dread neither of any chance misfortune nor even of death itself (a thing most difficult even for the most learned men), which all confess to be the highest citadel of philosophy: shall I not gladly give myself to you even as a disciple?

Here, when she had said gently and reverently that I had never told so great a lie, and when I saw that we had poured out so many words that they both ought not to be left unwritten and the book had already reached its measure, and no more tablets remained, it seemed good to defer the question — at the same time that I might spare my stomach. For the things which it seemed to me necessary to spew out against those young men had disturbed it more than I would have wished. But when we had begun to depart, Licentius said: 'Remember how many and how necessary things are supplied to us to be received from you, through that most hidden and divine order, even without your knowing it.' — 'I see it,' I said, 'and I am not ungrateful to God; and I presume that you yourselves, who observe these things, will for that very reason become better.'

This was the whole of my business on that day. BOOK TWO. Then, after a few days had intervened, Alypius came; and as a most brilliant sun rose, the brightness of the sky and — as far as was possible in those places in winter — a caressing mildness invited us to go down into the meadow which we used rather often and familiarly. With us was also our mother, whose native talent and whose spirit inflamed toward divine things I had already perceived both from long-standing companionship and careful consideration; but above all, in a certain discussion of no small matter which I held with my guests on my birthday and set down in a little book, so great a mind of hers had appeared to me that nothing seemed more fitted to true philosophy.

And so I had resolved, when she should have leisure to spare, to see to it that she was not absent from our conversation. And this too you came to know even in the first book of this work. When therefore we had seated ourselves in the aforesaid place, as conveniently as we could, I said to those two young men: 'Although I was angry with you for dealing childishly with great matters, yet it seems to me to have happened not without a favorable order, since in the discourse by which I was drawing you back from that levity, the time was so consumed that so great a matter seems to have been postponed to Alypius' arrival. Wherefore, since I have now made the question well known to him and have shown how far we advanced in it, are you prepared, Licentius, to defend the cause you undertook out of that definition of yours?'

For I think I remember that you said order is that through which God does all things. — 'I am prepared,' he said, 'as far as I am able.' — 'How then,' I said, 'does God do all things by order? In such a way that he does even himself by order? Or, apart from himself, are the rest of things governed by him through order?' — 'Where all things are good,' he said, 'there is no order. For there is the highest equality, which desires no order.' — 'Do you deny,' I said, 'that with God all things are good?' — 'I do not deny it,' he said. — 'It is concluded, then,' I said, 'that neither God nor those things which are with God are administered by order.' — He conceded it. — 'Surely,' I said, 'do all good things seem to you to be nothing?' — 'On the contrary,' he said, 'those very things truly are.'

'Where then,' I said, 'is that saying of yours, that all things which are, are administered by order, and that there is nothing at all which is separated from order?' — 'But there are,' he said, 'also evils, through which it has come about that order should embrace goods as well; for goods alone are not ruled by order, but goods and evils together. Now when we say "all things that are," we surely do not mean goods alone. Whence it comes about that all things together which God administers are administered by order.' To him I said: 'The things which are administered and done — do they seem to you to be moved, or do you think them immovable?' — 'Those things,' he said, 'which come to be in this world, I admit are moved.' — 'The rest,' I said, 'do you deny it?' — 'Those which are with God,' he said, 'are not moved; all the rest I judge to be moved.'

'Since therefore,' I said, 'you think that those things which are with God are not moved, but you grant that the rest are moved, you show that all things which are moved are not with God.' — 'Repeat this very point,' he said, 'a little more plainly.' — And this, it seemed to me, he wished not from any difficulty of understanding, but to gain a space for inquiry in which he might find what to answer. — 'You said,' I said, 'that those things which are with God are not moved, but that the rest are moved. If therefore these things which are moved would not be moved if they were with God — since you deny that all things which are with God are moved — it remains that the things which are moved are apart from God.' — When these things had been said, he still kept silent, until at last: 'It seems to me,' he said, 'that in this world too, if any things are not moved, they are with God.' — 'This is nothing to my point,' I said;

'for you confess, as I suppose, that not all things which are in this world are unmoved. Whence it is concluded that not all things of this world are with God.' — 'I confess,' he said, 'that not all are.' — 'Therefore is there anything without God?' — 'No,' he said. — 'Then all things are with God.' — Here, hesitating, he said: 'I beg that I may not have said that without God there is nothing; for it does not seem to me at all that things which are moved are with God.' — 'Then,' I said, 'this heaven, which no one doubts is moved, is without God.' — 'Heaven is not without God,' he said. — 'Then there is something with God which is moved?' — 'I cannot,' he said, 'as I wish, explain what I feel; yet what I am striving to say I beg that, without waiting for my words, you may most shrewdly understand, if you can.'

'For both nothing seems to me to be without God, and that which is with God seems in turn to remain unshaken; yet I cannot say that heaven is without God — not only because I judge that nothing is without God, but because I think that heaven has something which is not moved, something which is either God or is with God, although I do not doubt that heaven itself is turned and moved.' — 'Define then,' I said, 'if you please, what it is to be with God and what it is not to be without God. For if the controversy between us is about words, it will easily be despised, provided we see the very thing which you have conceived in your mind.' — 'I hate,' he said, 'to define.' — 'What then shall we do?' I said. — 'You,' he said, 'define, I beg.'

'For it is easier for me to see in another's definition what I do not approve, than to explain anything by defining it well.' — 'I will humor you,' I said. 'Does it seem to you that that is with God which is ruled and administered by him?' — 'That is not,' said he, 'what I had conceived in my mind when I said that things which are not moved are with God.' — 'See then,' I said, 'whether at least this definition pleases you: that is with God which understands God.' — 'I grant it,' he said. — 'What then?' I said; 'does the wise man not seem to you to understand God?' — 'He does seem to,' he said. — 'Since therefore wise men are moved not only within one house or city, but even by traveling and voyaging through immense stretches of regions, how will it be true that whatever is with God is not moved?'